Residential Arias – Opera House Sedona

This month’s Sedona Art and Architecture Tour, the annual fundraiser for the Northern Arizona Opera League, makes room for a little Western swing. Meet five of the participants displaying their “Art of the West,” photographed at four Tour locations (including the Seven Canyons villa seen above), in this exclusive preview.

For the seventh consecutive year, eight Sedona property owners are scheduled to open their stylish doors to the public as hosts of the annual Art and Architecture Tour, with proceeds benefiting the educational and performance programs of the Northern Arizona Opera League. Amid the ­cozy ­surroundings and hospitality, visitors will be introduced to the work of local artists, chefs, ­interior designers, and architects. Before the Welcome mats go out officially on May 20-21 (with a preview night/BBQ party on May 19), Sedona Monthly gathered five exhibitors who will showcase their work under the “Art of the West” banner at four Tour locations for this advance look at the event.

Cody DeLong

Plein air artist Cody DeLong’s admirers go the extra mile to give him inspiration – and he doesn’t mind covering long distances to get it. A day after the Art and Architecture Tour – where you can see his vivid desert images at Scott and Shelley Porter’s Casa Contenta home – Cody heads to Alaska. A couple who bought a painting added a plane ticket to the deal; “they said I needed to paint their landscape,” he says.

Cody’s work figures to be equally cozy at the Porter residence, where architect Eric Brandt will be on hand. Eric is a Tour veteran – this will be the third house he’s designed selected to be part of the event since it began seven years ago. Visitors exploring the 3,600-sq.-ft. home – completed in 2000 – will find a unique blend of Frank Lloyd Wright and Santa Fe pueblo. Craftsman furniture, wood and slate floors, fireplaces in the living room and master bedroom, and an impeccable gourmet kitchen give the home a “cozy, cottage feeling,”

Craig Nimitz and Jane Bauder-Darrow

Quiet Craig Nimitz has no problem talking with his hands – he may not say much about himself but his pride in his woodwork, in residence throughout Michael Hadley’s Casa Con­tenta home, starting with the front door Craig spent seven months perfecting, speaks volumes. Craig, owner of The Crooked Chair in West Sedona, prefers working on custom homes, so he can flow his work from room to room. Michael, owner of architect firm Michael Hadley and Associates, designed this Tour stop for his own use.

“Craig and I wanted to accent the house without overwhelming it,” Michael explains, pointing out posts Craig designed as he leads us through rooms decked out with more than 20 Navajo rugs and a collection of traditional Hopi kachinas. “The wood for these posts all came from the wildfires we had a few years ago in the mountains in eastern Arizona. You can still see where they were charred.”

While Craig’s work is a fixture in Michael’s 3,600-sq.-ft. home, Jane Bauder-Darrow will bring hers in especially for the Tour. Her acrylic paintings of horses and dancing women – “It’s all about movement,” she says – has a home at Goldenstein Gallery in Uptown.

“The whole concept of pairing different types of art together is very nice,” she says of the Tour – her first – and the opportunity to showcase her work next to Craig’s. “It’s all so Sedona.”

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